On this episode, I spoke to costume designer Wendy Chuck about her work on The Holdovers. 

Chuck has collaborated with some of the film industry’s most celebrated talents including Alexander Payne, Tom McCarthy, Jack Nicholson, George Clooney, Robert Redford, Jane Fonda, Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, and Jane Campion.

Her alchemy with fabric, texture, pattern, and color have brought life to a diverse range of characters on screen: Nebraska’s rustic Midwesterners, Election’s conniving high-schooler, Twilight’s teenage vampires, Spotlight’s journalistic team, and the inhabitants of Downsizing’s miniaturized world.

In 1994, the Australian Film Institute nominated Chuck for Best Achievement in Costume for the period piece Country Life (1994) starring Greta Sacchi and Sam Neill. Other awards followed including a win from the Costume Designers Guild for About Schmidt (2003), and nominations for The Descendents (2011) and Nebraska (2014).

Chuck has enjoyed a long standing working relationship with acclaimed writer/director Alexander Payne and has served as costume designer on all but one of his features. They have collaborated on hits like Sideways (2004) starring Paul Giamatti and Election (1999) starring Reese Witherspoon.

She is currently working on Disney’s Lilo and Stitch (2024) and her own capsule collection.